


The Persistence of Memory

by ladyshadowdrake



Category: Marvel, Marvel 616
Genre: Commander Rogers, Director Stark, Hickman mind wipe, Light BDSM, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 21:28:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13085718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyshadowdrake/pseuds/ladyshadowdrake
Summary: Director Stark has an office he hates, a job he doesn't want, and the fallout from a war he doesn't remember to handle. A late night meeting with Steve turns into an argument, but that's nothing unusual for them anymore. The way it ends is certainly new.





	The Persistence of Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laireshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/gifts).



> I hope you like it! I'm afraid I know next to nothing about the events surrounding Director Stark, but I hope you enjoy it either way. :D
> 
> So many thanks to Arukou for helping me figure out the canon enough to make something coherent, and betaing!

In the Technology Era, Tony did not understand why he spent 70% of his time doing paperwork, on paper, with a pen. He dropped the pen, and picked up his coffee. The coffee was cold and sour, just like it had been the last time he’d tried to drink it, and the time before that, and the time before that. He had a brief urge to throw the coffee mug out the window, but he took a slow breath and set it down instead. The chair squeaked as he dropped backwards, and he rubbed at his face with both hands.

He was exhausted, and he wanted a drink, and he want to _sleep_ , and he wanted to burn his office down and walk away forever. He’d turned off the overhead lights hours before, and his desk was a glowing island in the middle of the darkened office. Compared to his office at SI, it was close, and cluttered, and outdated. He stared into the gloom and massaged at his neck with his fingertips. The muscles on either side of his neck were ropes of tension, and the pressure of his fingertips was simultaneously agonizing and nearly orgasmic. He groaned, and pulled gently on the back of his head to stretch his neck. 

Opening his eyes, Tony looked blankly at the stack of paperwork he still needed to review and sign, and compared it to the stack that he’d already completed. At least the ‘completed’ stack was the taller of the two. He had meant to have all of it taken care of by noon, but between emergency calls with heads of state, unplanned meetings with his staff, and mediating a fight about personnel between two of his commanders, he hadn’t even touched the paperwork until he’d been able to send the rest of the day staff home.

A knock sounded at the door just as he was leaning forward to pick up his pen again. He clenched his teeth, and hissed out a breath between them.

“It’s open,” he called begrudgingly.

The door opened with the same seeming reluctance, and Steve stepped in. The muscles in Tony’s back tightened at once. Steve was still in uniform, and he looked as tense as Tony felt. As far as Tony was aware, they weren’t currently in any new fight, but that didn’t matter. Tony looked at him, and he could still see everything they’d been Before. He wondered sometimes what Steve saw when they made eye contact. Tony couldn’t remember the war, but considering the way Steve looked like he’d bitten into a lemon most of the time he was around Tony, it didn’t take much guessing. Tony would give absolutely anything to take them back, to be able to joke with his friend, watch movies together, play chess. He missed Steve, and having Steve walking the halls every day just made it worse.

“Commander,” Tony prompted when Steve didn’t immediately speak. “Can I help you with anything?”

Steve took in a breath, and then nodded. He gestured questioningly to a chair, and probably didn’t notice how much Tony hated that they had to be this careful around each other. The Steve Rogers that he actually remembered would have given his door a cursory knock, and then peered around the edge of it to see if he was busy. Even if Tony was on the phone, he’d have come in as long Tony didn’t wave him off. There wasn’t much that Tony hadn’t been willing to share with him, and there had been more than one occasion when Steve had hid in his workshop for most of the day while Tony conducted business.

The brittle politeness was tiring. Tony stifled an annoyed sigh and nodded. Steve pulled one of the chairs away from the desk, and lowered himself into it. Not a comfortable sprawl like he might have done Before, and not the stiff-backed-perched-on-the-edge posture that he took when he was really angry, but an aggressive forward lean. Tony leaned back automatically, caught himself, and then planted his forearms on the desk and leaned forward. He tried to look more alert, to look less like his stomach was wringing out like a wet towel, to not see the friend he used to have in the man staring him down.

“I wanted to talk to you about my operational support team,” Steve said after a moment of staring. His voice was gruff, the words clipped and bitten off, the way they always seemed to be when he talked to Tony lately.

“Okay.” If it had been anyone else, Tony might have looked at his watch to point out that it was after 8 at night, and it was a conversation that they could be having in twelve hours or more. If it had been anyone else, Tony might have picked up his pen and gotten back to work just to let them know that he was busy, and his time was valuable. Tony just waited, because it wasn’t anyone else– it was Steve, and goddamnit, but Tony was still stupidly in love with him.

“I have been having some performance and discipline issues with my support staff.” He clenched his teeth immediately after getting the words out, his gaze direct and hostile.

Tony wondered how long the issues had been going on, and how badly they’d gotten that Steve felt the need to come to him. Steve had always taken the performance of his team personally. He’d always considered failings from a member of the team as a reflection on himself. Tony’s first instinct was to goad him into admitting that people made their own choices, bully him out of his bad mood, and then invite him out for some terrible street food. It took an almost physical effort to stop himself from smiling. He didn’t think Steve would appreciate his humor.

“What can I do to assist?”

Despite his carefully measured tone, Steve glared as if Tony _had_ laughed at him. Talking to Steve was like dealing with unstable dynamite. Sometimes, Steve would seem to forget that they weren’t friends anymore, and he would be relaxed enough to smile, but most of the time, any stray word or unguarded expression sent him down an angry spiral.

Steve straightened up, squared his shoulders, and said, “I need a new support team. Complete rotation. Start fresh.”

The laugh exploded out of Tony’s chest before he could stop it. Steve reared back like he’d been struck, and Tony choked it down. He held up a hand to prevent Steve from storming out, and took a slow breath to re-center himself.

“I wasn’t laughing at you. If you had any kind of idea the sort of day I’ve head, you’d see why that was funny. Steve, I can’t give you a new support team. The personnel problems we are dealing with right now would make your head spin.” Tony leaned back in his chair, and might have continued, but Steve’s eyes had gone flat. He was so obviously not interested in the details of Tony’s problems that he may as well have said it out loud. “Suffice to say, you are going to have to find another way. What are the problems?”

Steve pursed his lips. “I’ll figure it out myself. Thanks for the help, Director.”

He stood to go, and Tony couldn’t suppress a snarl of frustration as he shoved himself to his feet. Steve whirled at the noise as if he expected Tony to attack him, and they ended up staring at each other like starving predators defending territory.

Tony shoved a hand through his hair and pulled hard. “How the fuck did we get like this? We’ve been friends for more than a decade, we’ve fought together. We used to _like_ each other. I –” _still love you_. Tony snapped his mouth shut on the last words. It wasn’t hard with Steve’s anger gathering visibly on his face. He knew, intellectually, that things had changed between them, and that Steve couldn’t forgive him, but Tony’s memory couldn’t connect the pieces. It felt like he’d gone to sleep with a best friend and a happy, if stressful life, and had woken up to a world in shambles. He’d never been so lonely in his life.

“You do _not_ get to ask that,” Steve ground out. “You got to forget. I can’t, and it’s not my responsibility to make you understand.”

“What do you want me to do?” Tony shoved his chair back so hard that it banged against the wall with a loud _crack_ , making them both jump.

“I want you to remember!” Steve shouted.

Tony flung his arms into the air. His frustration was a physical weight under his skin, a low buzzing against the back of his neck. He felt stifled in his stupid goddamn catsuit, and tore at his collar to loosen the stranglehold. “Okay, Steve. As soon as I figure out how to fold time and space, I’ll get right on that.”

Steve took a tense step forward, one hand coming up, and then stepped back. He clenched his hand into a fist at his side, right arm coming up into a familiar posture that was only missing the shield.  “You can’t ever take anything seriously.”

“Me? How am I supposed to take ‘I want you to remember’ seriously, Steve? Do you even hear yourself? I know what I did! I might not remember it, but I know. Did you really think that I wouldn’t do the research? Study every scrap of information I could get my hands on? I _know_ , Steve, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Tony’s chest heaved for breath while Steve just glared at him with that bulldog-jaw look settled firmly on his face. “Tell me what I can do – what I can actually do that is in the realm of, if not humanly possible, at least possible for _me_ – and I will do it, anything to make this – this – whatever the hell this is between us just a little better –”

“Shut up!” Steve interrupted in a suppressed scream that rasped across his throat.

“ _Make me!_ ” Tony snarled back before he could stop himself.

Steve took a sharp step forward, shield arm coming up in a gesture that was as familiar to Tony as the sight of his own hand raised for the repulsor. Tony took an automatic step backwards, hands coming up defensively, but Steve knocked his hands aside with a lightning fast snap of his wrist, and grabbed the back of Tony’s neck.

Before Tony could say a word in his own defense, or even get his hands up to push Steve back, Steve was pressed tightly against him. Their mouths met with a sharp crack of teeth, and Tony tasted blood that he barely processed over the sudden realization that Steve was kissing him. How many times had he dreamed of having Steve’s arms around him before the world had gone to shit? And now here he was in an office he hated, being all but mauled by a Steve who didn’t like him very much.

It didn’t matter. Tony yanked his arms out from between their bodies, and used them to drag Steve closer. His shoulders hit the wall with a painful thump, but Tony barely felt it over the sharp sting of Steve sucking on his split lip. It was brutal, and felt like fighting more than anything, but Tony wanted it so badly he could scream.

Steve yanked away from him finally, and slammed a hand into the wall at Tony’s side, face a mask of conflict. “You infuriate me.”

“Join the fucking club, Steve. It’s about time.”

A ghost of a smile flickered over Steve’s lips. His blood - or maybe Tony’s - slicked his bottom teeth, and he took a moment to prod at it with his tongue. The motion left his teeth pink. “You’ve always infuriated me.”

What he didn’t say was that Tony used to thrill him as much as anger him. Tony didn’t say it either. He reached down to grab Steve’s belt buckle, and gave it a hard yank as he pulled the belt’s tail out of the loop.

“Stop pushing me, Stark.” Steve warned, catching his wrists and squeezing them just hard enough to hurt.

“Make me,” Tony repeated.

He didn’t think he could have gotten a better response if he’d set a firecracker off at Steve’s feet. Steve yanked him forward to get him off balance, and then picked him up in one smooth motion, spun, and dropped Tony on his desk. The cold coffee flew off the edge, hitting the ugly industrial carpet with a dull smack, and papers went everywhere. Sorting out the stacks again would be a mess, and Tony did not care. He wrapped his legs around Steve’s hips, locked his ankles, and squeezed. Steve retaliated by digging a thumb into Tony’s inner thigh. Tony knew the trick, and he’d been on the receiving end of it more than once during sparring practice, but even though he’d been expecting it, the sudden pain at the pressure point made his grip loosen.

Steve had just enough room to yank his belt off. It slid out of the loops with a ripping _swoosh_ and a crack, the trailing end of it flying over Tony’s head. Despite feeling the air of its motion, Tony hadn’t flinched; even trapped under Steve’s bulk and at his mercy, he couldn’t make himself believe that Steve would hurt him. Steve maybe didn’t agree. His jaw clenched and relaxed several times, and his hands squeezed the webbed belt so hard that his gloves creaked.

Tony looked down at the belt, and then up to Steve’s face. His entire body was alive with anticipation, shuddering like he’d had too much caffeine and not enough calories. He swallowed hard and met Steve’s eyes. “My safeword is safeword.”

Steve’s eyes widened briefly, and then went flinty, but he nodded. He grabbed Tony’s wrist and made quick work of looping the belt around it and pulling it tight. Tony yanked back on it just to see if Steve would let him, and Steve respond by dragging the belt sharply upward.

“No,” he said with simple, uncompromising authority.

Tony thought about challenging him, but subsided. They were in dangerous territory, and neither of them had ever been able to step back from a confrontation. Even when they’d been good together, they’d played off each other like fire and oil. Tony let his arm relax, and Steve wrapped the belt once around the buckle, protecting Tony’s wrist from the bite of it. Tony wondered briefly at the consideration, but it was Steve. Even when it was someone he so obviously hated, Tony didn’t think he was capable of intentionally harming a sex partner. At least not without permission.

Steve pulled Tony's other wrist over and bound it to the first. He watched Tony with almost unnerving intensity while he did so, barely glancing down long enough to be sure the knot was fast. Tony couldn’t be sure if Steve was daring him to protest, or watching him for any sign of indecision. He couldn’t guess which one Steve wanted more, or if he’d put Tony out of his mind altogether, if maybe Tony was just a body for the moment. Steve leaned over him, dragging the belt over the edge of the desk, and taking Tony’s hands with it. He let his weight rest on Tony’s chest as he looped the belt around one of the desk’s legs. Steve was heavy, and the weight of him pinning Tony to the desk was enough to drive his breath out of his chest. He gasped in sips of air, trying to hold as much of it in his lungs as he could, but he didn’t ask Steve to move, and Steve didn’t offer. The RT couldn’t be much more pleasant for Steve than it was for Tony, but he didn’t seem the least off-put by it. Adjusting the angle of his spine, Tony hiked his legs further up Steve’s hips, and held on tight.

“Let go,” Steve ordered shortly.

Tony’s legs opened and fell away almost before he’d decided to obey. He heard a soft whine of noise, and realized it had come from his own throat. Heat flushed up his face that had more to do with embarrassment than the lack of oxygen. Steve gave the belt a sharp tug, and then slowly pushed himself upright again. Tony tested the knot himself, and found that even when he pulled with all of his strength, he couldn’t get it to budge at all. The length of the belt kept his arms back at an uncomfortable angle, and forced his back to bow while the edge of the desk dug mercilessly into his forearms. He could already feel the steady heat of pain building in his lower back from the position.

Steve stepped away and just looked down at him. His face was impossible to read, chest rising and falling steadily while Tony squirmed in an effort to get comfortable.

“Stop moving,” Steve said.

Tony’s feet dropped back to the floor with a dull thump that recalled the spilled coffee mug. He struggled to swallow and breathe at the same time, and ended up somewhere in between the two. He cleared his throat, becoming more and more aware of Steve’s seemingly uninterested gaze the longer the moment stretched. If he really wanted to, Tony could flip himself over the desk. The height of the desk and the lack of leverage meant he might do damage to his elbows, and would land off balance and mostly on his knees, but he could do it. He prodded at himself in a mute question to see how far Steve would have to go for Tony to make an effort at freeing himself. The answer was disturbingly grim.

Moving slowly and deliberately, Steve set a hand to Tony’s left thigh. The muscle jumped up eagerly to meet his palm, and he pressed the heel in as he pushed his hand up to Tony’s waist. Tony made another one of those embarrassing sounds, but he kept still under the patient onslaught as Steve loosened his belt and slowly pulled it free. It dropped to the floor, _shlick-thumpthump,_ the combat gear joining the sour coffee on the shitty carpet.

“I've wanted to peel you out of this,” Steve muttered, the rasp of his voice making Tony shiver. He reached up to pull the collar apart, and then twisted the zipper pull between his fingers, looking at Tony like he was daring him to protest. When Tony said nothing, Steve made a sharp motion with both hands, and the zipper parted with a scream of protest. Grabbing either edge of the torn zipper, Steve yanked hard, tearing out the rest of the seam. Tony shivered at the sudden exposure to the cool air, and couldn’t help automatically trying to curl up. He didn’t let people see the RT if he could help it, and Steve’s eyes were right on it. Tony imagined that he could feel the RT aching under the heat of Steve's gaze. He shivered.

Steve set a splayed hand on Tony’s chest, stilling the motion automatically and briefly covering the light from the RT. He waited only until Tony had subsiding into a trembling wreck on the desk before dragging his fingernails down Tony’s chest and straight into his boxers. He tugged sharply at the waistband. The fabric parted so quickly that it sounded more like a crack than a rip. Steve pulled the frayed ends of the boxers open and left them to rest on Tony's hips. Tony couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so vulnerable. He started to shake, uncontrollable tremors in his thighs and stomach making his shoulder holster rattle against the desk. The humiliation and pure _want_ coalesced into a tangible weight in his pelvis and sent shocky pulses down his legs and up his ribs.

Glancing up at Tony’s face one more time, Steve leaned over abruptly and took Tony’s cock into his mouth, straight down to the root. Tony jerked and gasped at the suddenness of it, legs kicking out automatically, knees lifting in an effort to wrap around Steve’s waist again, but Steve just looked up at him through his long lashes, and Tony instantly subsided. Without the leverage to even thrust upward, he couldn’t do more than flop helplessly. Steve was not gentle with him, as much teeth as tongue, sucking hard like he meant to pull Tony inside out. It was too intense to be exactly pleasurable, not painful enough to be anything else. Tony bit into his lip and screamed Steve’s name against his teeth, tasting fresh blood as his mind whited out.

Steve edged him mercilessly, brought him right up to the very tip of the precipice, and then reached up to pinch him hard enough to bring him crashing back down, only to build him quickly back up again. Tony begged silently, and then aloud, sobbing, and yanking against the hold of the belt. Steve would not be moved to cooperate, and Tony knew that he had enough stubbornness and stamina to outlast Tony’s sanity any day. Angry, he could have pulled Tony right through the apocalypse this way.

Tony fell into helpless babbling, and was only vaguely aware of what he was doing – apologizing, confessing, spilling out every secret, and every regret, and begging Steve to just let him come.

“I love you,” Tony gasped through the stickiness in his throat. Tears streamed messily down his face, leaving cold streaks on his hot cheeks. “I always have, I’m sorry. It wasn’t worth it.”

Maybe the words startled him, or maybe Steve just finally realized that Tony couldn’t handle another moment of the torture. He slid his arms under Tony’s knees, wedged his hands under Tony’s lower back, and pulled him off the desk. It might have been the weight coming off his lower back as much as Steve’s implied permission, but Tony came with painful suddenness. He gasped and whimpered his way through the orgasm, and was left floating in the aftermath. He couldn’t feel the edge of the desk biting into his arms, he couldn’t feel the tingling in his hands, or the throb around his spine. Steve held his weight effortlessly, and let Tony drift through the haze. As vulnerable as he’d felt earlier, he felt equally protected and warm in the wake of his orgasm.

He came back to Steve’s forehead pressed into his stomach. They were both slick with sweat, and Steve mouthed slowly at his skin. “I almost killed you.”

Unable to help himself, Tony laughed. “Yeah,” he croaked. He was surprised the sounds came out at all.

Steve shuddered. “I was on your chest, and I had my shield above my head, and for a second I wanted to. I can’t sleep without seeing your face. I think you wanted me to do it.”

He looked up slowly. His eyes were rimmed with red to match the flush in his cheeks. “I almost killed you, and you can’t remember it.” His lips, swollen and moist, curved upward in a parody of a smile that came dangerously close to being manic. “I can’t forget. Where the hell does that leave us, Tony?”

Tony wanted to point out that it left them with him tied to a desk by means of Steve’s combat belt, but he couldn’t make his throat produce the words. Tears still streaked from the corners of his eyes, pouring hot over his temples, and running cold into his hair. “I don’t know.”

“How can you say you still love me?”

“I might not remember the war we fought,” Tony said slowly, “But there is nothing in this universe or any other that could change _that_.”

Looking troubled, Steve lowered him slowly back to the desk, and then leaned over Tony’s chest again, careful to keep his weight to himself as he slid the knots away from Tony’s wrists. Tony’s back instantly protested having his weight on his spine again, and his shoulders throbbed from the release of pressure as soon as the belt fell away. Steve didn’t let him suffer there for long. He slipped one arm under Tony’s shoulders, and the other under his knees. A soft breath was all he had to show for the exertion as he picked Tony up, and went down to the floor. They joined the sour coffee, Tony’s combat belt, and the rumpled remains of his paperwork.

Tony ended up in Steve’s lap as Steve settled himself against the wall with Tony’s chair level to his shoulder.

“Maybe I should have let you tie me to a desk before the world went to shit,” Tony mused.

Possibly despite himself, Steve laughed.

“If you give me a second to get out of my ridiculous catsuit, I’d be happy to return the favor.”

Steve shook his head mutely, and squeezed Tony tighter to his chest. He nestled his forehead into Tony’s neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into Tony’s collarbone. “I keep thinking that it’s not fair to apologize when you don’t remember what I’m apologizing for, but I can’t just. We can’t stay like this.”

‘Naked on my office floor?’ was not the response Steve needed, though once upon a time, it would have still been the right one. Steve would have pointed out that they weren't completely naked. Tony would have said something cheeky about rectifying his mistake as penance. Tony nodded instead. “We also can’t solve our problems by ruining all of my uniforms. Pretty sure we’re breaking a few dozen regulations here.”

Steve snorted. “At least.”

Tony plucked at the frayed remains of his suit. “Maybe you can let me get dressed, and we can take this back to my place? I’m sure we can find at least one crappy street food vendor on the way.” He tried to keep his tone right, but he was painfully aware of how cautious and vulnerable he sounded. His voice was still rough from begging his way to an orgasm, and he could already feel the bruises settling in at his wrists.

Steve hesitated. “I’m still angry.”

Tony looked around at the state of his office. “I know.”

Hands tightening on Tony’s side, Steve warned, “This isn’t just going to just fix things.”

Setting his hand carefully on the side of Steve’s face, Tony met his eyes. “I know.”

Steve’s eyes slid shut. He shuddered, swallowed hard, and nodded. After a moment, he nodded again. “I missed you. I’ve missed you a lot.”

“And the crappy street food?” Tony prodded.

“And the crappy street food,” Steve agreed. He smiled, and for a moment, every terrible thing between them faded. Tony felt the first stirrings of hope, and thought that maybe there was a better way forward for them.

 

 


End file.
